It was fitting, in a way. Tamsin had always been willing to give her life for her sister. Now she finally would.
TWENTY-TWO WREN
The day her mother died, the earth had shifted beneath Wren’s feet—a great, rumbling quake that mirrored the breaking of her heart. As her father set to work methodically building the pyre on which to burn his wife’s body, Wren fought to find her balance on a ground that would not stay still. Tried to reclaim her place in a world that no longer made sense.
No one else had ever mentioned the shaking. Not even her father, who had been working mere feet away from the ground where Wren stood. But she had always known it was the earth opening its arms to welcome her mother back to the dust from which she had come.
As the ground beneath Marlena’s room began to shake, Wren wondered whom it would claim this time. She tried to open her eyes, but they felt sewn shut. Her bones were heavy and aching.
A high-pitched buzzing echoed in her ears, like a thousand baby bees. There was a flash of light so bright Wren could see it through her eyelids. A clatter. The scent of charred sage was overtaken by the stench of soured milk. Another clatter, louder this time. A soft swear. A sigh. And somewhere, far away, the crash of the sea.
Wren wrenched her eyes open. The room was ruined. Chairs were overturned, china shattered, tables broken, and a deep crack ran through the floor. A figure was kneeling next to a pile of pillows.
Marlena. Or was it Tamsin? Her vision was fuzzy. She couldn’t tell the sisters apart.
Wren tried to focus. Her head pulsed with pain; her tongue was dry; her vision blurred. Strange that Marlena owned pillows the same color as Tamsin’s cloak. Her brain buzzed droopily. She ought to tell Tamsin. Perhaps she’d find the coincidence funny. Maybe if she could make Tamsin laugh, a real laugh, just once, that would be enough to end all of this. Wren swept her eyes around the room, but the witch was nowhere to be found.
Movement. The kneeling figure brushed a hand over the pile of pillows, a dark curl catching on her finger. Wren’s heart clenched as she realized it was Tamsin on the floor, Marlena above her. The ribbons of Tamsin’s earthy red magic were no thicker than a sewing needle. Tamsin was helpless. Unable to fight back.
Wren braced her hands on the wall behind her, the structure grumbling like an empty stomach. She pushed herself up, as slowly as possible, not wanting to draw Marlena’s attention. Her muscles screamed in protest. Her body ached as though she had taken a beating from a club fitted with a thousand tiny pins. Everything hurt.
“Without you, I’ll finally be free.” Marlena’s tone was oddly grief-stricken, the way Wren’s father’s had been as he scattered his wife’s ashes to the wind. “Good night, sister.”
“Don’t.” The word escaped before Wren could think better of it. And really, she should have thought about it, for now she had the full attention of a witch armed with dark magic. Wren couldn’t use her own power, couldn’t fight back. All she could do was watch as darkness swirled around Marlena. Ribbons of dark magic clung to the girl like a shroud. But her attention was no longer fixed upon her sister. The tiny threads of Tamsin’s clay-red magic still hung about her head. She was still alive.
“I thought I killed you.” Marlena’s eyes flashed with annoyance as she turned away from Tamsin’s limp figure. “I might need Tamsin alive, but I don’t need you, too.” She shot a spark halfheartedly at Wren, but Wren, who was able to see the magic before it was thrown, dodged it.
Marlena’s nose wrinkled with displeasure as the spark hit the wall beside Wren instead, and the quaking of the room turned to a full-blown roar. Marlena stared warily at a large crack that crept quickly toward the ceiling. Wren’s stomach clenched. With Marlena casting spells at such a dizzying rate, there was no telling the effect the plague was having on the world beyond the trees.
Dark magic was forbidden because it was unbalanced. It was power pulled directly from the earth without anything offered in return. When Tamsin described the earth’s reaction to dark magic, she made it sound as though it was the world that was behaving badly: The world rebelled. But how else could the earth exist if not for the power it held just beneath the surface? It was magic that made the rain fall, magic that made the trees grow, magic that guided the winds. It was magic that made flowers bloom and birthed animals and caused the sun to shine.
Now Marlena was stealing that magic, taking and taking and never returning. The sun had disappeared from the sky. People were losing their memories. Water howled and stone screamed. The earth wasn’t rebelling.
The earth was dying.
“Stop.” Wren marveled at how authoritative she sounded despite the fear housed in every inch of her body. “That magic doesn’t belong to you.”
Marlena merely rolled her eyes, shooting another shower of sparks across the room. Wren dodged them again. The crack in the ceiling widened. A sliver of night sky peeked in, as black as the magic surrounding Tamsin’s sister. It held not a single star.
The endless night was as hopeless as Wren felt. She couldn’t evade Marlena’s spells forever. Eventually, her body would give in to the pain, or the earth would open and swallow her whole. It was no use running away. Marlena needed to be stopped, but Wren could only sense magic, not fight it.
She was doing it again. Undermining her abilities before giving herself a chance to try. Wren was the one who had led them to Marlena. By using her senses. By taking her time. Trying not only to find the magic but to understand it. Perhaps if she thought of Marlena as just another sheet of paper in her journal, she could tease out the thread of magic still tying the sisters together. She could find a way to stop her—not like a witch, but like a source.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Marlena had stopped shooting sparks and was staring at Wren with a wary expression. Dust fell from the cracks in the ceiling, streaking her dark hair with gray.
“Like what?” Wren wasn’t certain what her face looked like, but she kept the expression in place.
“Like you aren’t afraid of me.” Marlena pressed her thin lips together until they all but disappeared. “I could kill you, you know.” But this time she didn’t sound so certain.
The earth beneath their feet gave another rumble. Marlena glanced around nervously.
“I know,” Wren said slowly, softly, the coaxing way she sometimes spoke to her hens. “But killing me is not a good idea.” She glanced up at the crack in the ceiling. She didn’t want Marlena to use her power. The room was in shambles, its structure just as precarious as Wren’s plan. At any moment it could collapse.
Marlena’s eyes studied Wren suspiciously. They were so like Tamsin’s it made Wren ache. “Why not?”
“Because I could help you.” Wren fought to keep the fear from her face.
Marlena’s lips quirked upward into the ghost of a smile. Her eyes glittered. Wren swallowed thickly. Magic scraped its way down her throat, leaving it as raw as if she had been screaming.
“And why would you do that?” Marlena eyed her in a way that made her feel exposed. The witch’s gaze lingered on all of Wren’s bruises and scars, all her tender places.
“Because I know what it feels like to be left behind.” Wren’s voice cracked, her breath hitching midsentence at the raw truth of her words. “I know what it’s like when your best isn’t enough.”
Marlena’s face darkened, but the magic swirling around her did not move to strike. “Is that so?”
“It is.” Wren took a cautious step toward the girl. Her heart beat faster than the flitting of a hummingbird’s wings. Her tongue was dry, the salty, sour taste of the air coating her teeth. Fear was an animal, uninvited and unbidden, leaving destruction in its wake. She would not give in.
The witch studied Wren for a moment before her fingers shot out and closed around Wren’s wrist. Marlena’s skin was as hot as a blazing fire. Her touch sent a wave of nausea through Wren, along with something darker. An emotion, desperate and heavy, settled itself in her chest. Wren forced he
r attention past the feeling, toward Marlena and her fiery skin, trying to find the girl’s magic without giving away too much of her own.
It was exhausting. Wren was pushing back her own magic, funneling it so that it dripped out of her rather than poured. She was also pulling herself forward toward Marlena’s power, keeping her senses alert, searching for the heart of the girl’s dark magic.
Marlena’s grip tightened, her fingers digging sharply into Wren’s skin. Wren cried out, losing hold of her concentration. Marlena’s eyes glittered wildly, her teeth bared in a feral smile. Then she sent Wren flying across the room.
Wren landed on her side, her elbow cracking against the floor, pain sparking through her body so quickly Wren could feel it in her teeth. She cried out, her body shaking as she curled into herself, trying not to cry.
“You must think me a fool,” Marlena said, towering over Wren. “Just like everyone else, you underestimate me. You should really give me a bit more credit.”
White-hot magic seeped into Wren until her organs, her skin, her heart, were all on fire. A scream echoed through the room. It took her a long time to recognize it as her own.
“Stop.” Tamsin’s voice cracked like the earth beneath them. She was on her knees, hair plastered to her sweaty forehead, her eyes dull and dark as she panted to catch her breath. Incredibly, Marlena obeyed her sister’s command, staring with confusion as Tamsin tore at the broken floor with her bare hands, ripping away the splintered wood and sinking her fingers into the earth below.
Wren tried to get up, but she could barely see straight through the pain. She was going to be sick, the dark magic overpowering every one of her senses. Her vision was beginning to fade. She was useless. She was just as useless as she’d always feared.
Tamsin started whispering, so softly that Wren could not understand what she was saying, only that she was calling to the earth, asking for its power. It wasn’t until the scent of sulfur caught in the back of her throat that Wren realized what Tamsin was doing.
She was summoning dark magic too.
It was so foolish Wren could hardly believe it true. Yet all the telltale signs were there: the stink of sulfur, the rumbling of the earth in protest, the inky black ribbons that clung to the witch like a shadow.
But louder than Tamsin’s determination, than even Wren’s fear, was the earth’s desperate cry. It had no magic to spare, and if Tamsin used its power against her sister, the act would result in something so terrible Wren could not even imagine it. All she had was the world’s fearful call, loud and insistent, inside her head.
If only there were something she could do. But she was housing too much sound: the scream of her own body, the clamoring of the earth, Marlena’s shrieks of frustration. Tamsin continued to whisper, the air around her shimmering like a shield. Her sister’s sparks ricocheted off the shining spell and smacked against the walls. Loud crashes split them into pieces. More and more of the night’s endless darkness poured into the room.
With Marlena’s attention focused elsewhere, Wren’s vision started to return. She glanced desperately between the sisters. Each face was determined. Their decisions were made. Wren’s arm ached, the bones shattered from her fall. She pushed herself shakily to her knees, her eyes on Tamsin. She had to get the witch’s attention. She had to stop her before the world broke in a way that could not be repaired. Before Tamsin did something she would always regret.
As she clutched the threads of dark magic she had pulled from the earth, something raw flashed across Tamsin’s face. Wren knew the expression well. She had worn it herself. It was grief, sudden as a summer storm and twice as destructive. This time, when Tamsin struck out, she would strike to kill.
But before Wren could call to her, Marlena darted forward, grabbed Tamsin’s hair in a white-knuckled fist, and slammed her sister’s head onto the ground. Tamsin let out a terrible scream, made worse by the fact that it lasted only seconds.
The room was silent, smoke drifting and shifting as ash scattered about their feet and wood crumbled above their heads. Wren could see nothing but the frantic waves of Marlena’s dark magic. She couldn’t see Tamsin, could not get a single whiff of herbs, saw no thread of magic, red nor black, emanating from her. She could see nothing but Marlena, standing alone in the middle of the room.
So Wren leaped at the girl, her ruined arm tucked tightly against her side, voice shrieking, hitting pitches even she herself could not hear. Her broken arm shouted with every minuscule jostle as Marlena writhed beneath her grip. The smoke caught in Wren’s lungs. She struggled to breathe, coughing loud, scraping sounds. Her legs threatened to crumple beneath her weight.
Marlena swore, her hands in Wren’s hair, tugging so hard Wren thought her scalp might rip from her head. Wren clawed at Marlena with her good arm, following her instincts, not her thoughts. Letting her senses lead, not her fear.
“Stop this,” she choked out, her anger nearly as hot as Marlena’s skin. “You’re going to end everything.” Fury hit her like a wave, like wind in a tunnel, as though she was sucking the life from her surroundings. The motion nearly bowled her over. For it wasn’t anger but magic, unfamiliar and heavy, that pooled in Wren. She reached out toward Marlena, not with her hands, but with that magic. And she pulled.
There was a snap.
Immediately, Marlena went limp and slumped to the ground. The world dulled, then suddenly became overwhelmingly bright, as though Wren had stared into the sun. A rush passed through her, like a howling summer wind. She was knocked to the ground yet landed softly, magic curling protectively around her.
Sound reverberated in her ears even as it echoed in a different pattern through the hazy room. The ache pulsed in her body, feverish and lingering. There was the unmistakable scent of sulfur, overwhelmed by the stench of rotting pears.
Dark magic clung to the room like cobwebs, casting thick shadows over everything. The air was heavy. Wren sucked in breaths, but it felt as though there were a pillow pressed against her face. The effort was so great as to be nearly impossible. There was another flash of lightning, and when the light faded, so had the darkness. It was still night, but the magic began to dissipate like a blown-out candle, the remaining threads of black floating lazily like smoke toward the sky. Stars appeared, their faint lights twinkling through the cracks in the ceiling.
The ground had stopped its shaking.
Marlena’s body was splayed across the floor. Silent. Still. Wren tested the back of her hand against Marlena’s forehead. The girl’s skin was no longer hot, her cheeks no longer flushed with life. Her breathing had all but ceased.
“Wren?” Tamsin’s voice was weak. “What’s happened? Where are you?”
Wren skittered away from Marlena’s limp form, her eyes wide and unbelieving. She had only meant to stop Marlena, not to destroy her. She pulled at her braid with shaking hands, but her scalp already ached from Marlena’s attack. Her usual centering method did nothing to calm her.
“I’m… here,” she called back, her voice catching in her throat, froglike and frightened. She surveyed the wreckage of the room, her eyes searching for a shadow. She cradled her broken arm like a baby against her. The pain had faded from a fiery burn to an endless dull throbbing. She wasn’t sure she could feel anything anymore. She had broken something in Marlena, something irreparable, if the witch’s limp body was any indication. She didn’t know how she could face Tamsin.
A shadow pulled itself forward, its steps shaky and unsure. Tamsin stopped in the middle of the floor beside Marlena’s body. Smoke curled about her sharp cheekbones. Her skin glittered like milk in the faint starlight. Wren caught a whiff of fresh sage.
But instead of shouting, as Wren had expected Tamsin to do, the witch pulled her to her feet and wrapped her arms around her so tightly she found it difficult to breathe. Together they stood among the wreckage, locked in an embrace as the world spun slowly on around them.
TWENTY-THREE TAMSIN
Tamsin held on to Wren for dear li
fe. And indeed it felt like the source was the only thing keeping her from falling to pieces, from shattering as easily as a teacup on the wooden floor. A tinny whistle buzzed incessantly in her left ear. There was a steady hammering at her temple where her head had met the floorboards. Her arms were scratched, bright red drops of blood wrapping her wrists like bindings. Yet the aching of her body was nothing compared to the splintering of her heart.
The fact that Tamsin could not love was irrelevant when faced with the sight of her sister lying lifeless on the floor. Marlena’s mouth hung open, as though she’d had more to say. Her eyes were empty. It was a punch to the gut, a stab in the side, seeing her sister splayed out in the exact same position she had been in five years ago, the first time Tamsin had watched Marlena die.
The one thing Tamsin had always promised herself was that she would never again hurt someone she loved, but then, in another moment of desperation, she had reached again for dark magic, this time to turn against her sister rather than to save her.
She was exactly the same stupid, impulsive girl she had always been. She hadn’t grown at all. Her grief, her guilt, all her practice in self-restraint, had not actually made her better. In fact, here she stood, squeezing her eyes shut so she would not have to take in her sister’s lifeless body. She was back exactly where she had started.
“I’m sorry.” Wren’s whisper was lighter than a feather. “Tamsin, I’m so, so sorry.”
The source pulled away from her, her face streaked with tears. She cradled her arm like a baby, the bone splintered and awkward.
“Stop.” Tamsin was grateful to focus on Wren’s ruined arm. It was broken in at least two places. Wren sucked in a tight lungful of air at Tamsin’s touch, her expression betraying exactly how much pain she felt. Focusing on the breaks one at a time, Tamsin pulled what little strength she had left to the forefront, sending it to the torn muscles and splintered bones. It was like scraping the bottom of an empty barrel. Wren, too, was devoid of magic, her stores depleted from the fight. So Tamsin worked slowly. Wren swayed back and forth, soft as the sea.
Sweet & Bitter Magic Page 24